


The Reflection

by billspilledquill



Category: The necklace - Guy de Maupassant
Genre: Gen, I Am The Only Person That Ever Wrote A Fanfic About This I Feel Honored, Mentions Of Prostitution (Minor), References to hamlet if you squint, Suicide, This Is Terrible Dont Read It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 13:24:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: The weight of the necklace felt like a feather, tickling her throat like a knife. She was bright and beautiful, and she felt as light as ever.There was a light as golden as that night, and in a moment of persuasion, she felt her hand were tainted in that golden complexion too.





	The Reflection

 

 

 

There was silence in the eye of a hurricane, she thought.

Everywhere sought to have a place where sound cannot pierce, its shrieking cries and the smell of despair didn't penetrate that little spot where she sat, it was the eye of a hurricane, the skies were crashing together and the wonder of the lightening was enough to strike astonishment in angels.

Mlle. Loisel was curling into a ball, strangely calm in face of the storm coming down, she was aware of the wrath of god, so she clutched her too small clothes tighter, knowing that god wasn't mad at her. She was only ten.

Her mind swipe to the screams of mothers in distress, and their property killed by god’s spine, she shouted it out.

Her father was shouting to plea her to get out of here, but she knew she was safe here, where danger can't enter her mind, where her mind can't enter to into danger. Where there was silence, there was silence of moral mind, the time numbed, stopped, frozen in the heat of the wind.

She closed her eyes, choosing to not hear her father’s voice, and waited the silence to end. The laughter didn't sound like hers, but she laughed anyway.

One day, she swore with the silence as witness as she held with cold sweat the two francs in her pocket she received on her birthday tighter, one day, she was going to be rich, to be those fortunate dames, where poverty can't reach them, only gay and joyful parties, and the world was going to envy her, even she will envy herself.

As the rage of god died in its actions, she realized that her mind never quite found silence, quieter the silence, louder her thoughts of her mind reached her like any hurricanes can god possibly created. Except this time, it was the devil.

And like a fool, she signed it with her blood.

 

* * *

 

The necklace was shining in the ballroom like the ocean glistening in the sun, and she was the boat, looming right into a future she did not belong, and yet she was so real, the necklace was so real, the people were so authentic in their copied smiles and courtiers’ speeches, she believed it, she did.

The weight of the necklace felt like a feather, tickling her throat like a knife. She was bright and beautiful, and she felt as light as ever.

There was a light as golden as that night, and in a moment of persuasion, she felt her hand were tainted in that golden complexion too.

 

* * *

 

He can't shut up.

She rubbed her temples as she watched her husband frantically count the francs as if they were facing another hurricane, and this time, she can't even find an illusion of silence.

“You must write to your friend,” her husband supplied, and she suddenly remembered her father. He is dead now. “You have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it repaired. That will give us time to turn around.”

She had been dreaming about that golden light, it was like the color of the sky when the hurricane crashed down and killed her father. At least he left her money in the box that survived it.

She often wondered what would change if she was ever born like any one of these sophisticated women in the party, their hair smoothed with power, extravagant costumes, like players, playing their roles, without losing their gold, nor necklace.

A fair fool, nonetheless.

“No,” her lips trembled, “no, no—“ her whispers went in a pitch higher and her husband stared at her as if she had grown another head, “Can you imagine what this will bring to us?” She snapped, “I can't live my life in misery, sir! No that won't do!”

Mme. Loisel fell on the floor, weeping, “I wished a life better than this, o God, how I wish this petty flesh would melt!”

“Now, now,” her husband clumsily held her hand softly, as if to tame a feral cat, “we must see how we can replace those jewels.”

She saw the necklace in her mind, with the same brightness, but she also shuddered at its odd and unnatural slight yellow light reflected on it. This will cost at least two thousand francs!

“I said don't touch me sir!” She can't felt his hands on her shoulder, but she screamed anyway, “Go away, nay, I said go!”

Her husband, coward as he was, thought her too mad to speak. With damp hands, she took the mirror on his husband’s writing table, and rushed outside, in the cold air, to the cold people. They were not like this one night, they were admiring her that night, they were all looking at the necklace with envy, marveling at its craftsmanship, they were lovely.

Yet, she ran in the streets with the most maddening feeling that if she ran faster, stretched her arms further, somehow things could be undone. The necklace never lost, Loisel never born, then reborn, rich and fortunate, out of this world imagination. She would spend her life of amusing parties, friends that suit her, a husband that she deserved.

She continued running, and she can't distinguish the snickers from herself and from the devil. The steps unto the street Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she stopped, suddenly wanting to know the history behind the history of this brick, the name, the ground. She never got a chance to learn.

Then the golden light flickered, and she continued to run as desperately as any fortunate man who need a wife, as tirelessly as time’s fool, and the wind felt like cuts on her cheeks, light and as passionate as a lover’s kiss.

A night-girl caught her, “Ye girl need to calm down. Where are you going?” Her breath stank and the makeup was a thick layer of white flour, “The nunnery is in this way.”

She detached herself from the girl and ran away, this time even faster. She imagined herself in this grown, in that deep disgusting paint of red and white, seducing whoever will pay her. Paris was a rotten city, yet its people were more so.

She reached to the shore, where the dark had settled down and the moon only half eaten by the sun. Mme. Loisel was looking at the light. Its gold, and metallic flavor she can almost taste in her sweetened tongue, and the seemingly reachable distance in the eye of the moon.

Her feet touched the water, and as she sank deeper, as look up under the glass like surface of the sea, its light wavered, and she realized it was only the reflection of the sun.

 

 

 


End file.
